Downfall
by LetThemEatLlamas
Summary: "Sane isn't a word used very often to describe my mother." Modern. AU. Oneshot.


**A/N:** Don't hate me! This story had a mind of it's own, I swear it wrote itself! I hope you like parallels...

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender. I own this story. I don't feel like making this funny right now. Here is a cupcake.

* * *

**Downfall**

Sane isn't a word used very often to describe my mother.

It only came out though when she was alone with me.

It started when I was just a little girl, she used to rock me in her arms. She would cry while doing so, and squeeze me tight. So tight I remember the numbness like a second nature. She would often cry out jumbled words, but mostly she would just ask me to never leave her, and to always stay with her. I would say yes, and then I would say I would always love her. While I was only six the last time I said the words to her, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

This wouldn't happen all the time, though. It only did on rare occasions actually. Most days my mother was just like any other mother, wife, or daughter should be.

She would make me, and my brother lunches with fruit gummies inside instead of actual fruit like all the other kids in our class got. She would tickle our stomachs when we would beg for another bedtime story at night, saying the tickle monster would eat us all up if we didn't go to sleep. In the end though, she would just give in, and read another story to us. She would take me to my swim lessons everyday, and at the meets she would cheer louder than any of the other parents, many of whom she was close friends with.

Her and my father had a loving relationship, and as much as it grossed Sokka out, they would try to sneak a few kisses in when they thought we weren't looking. Our family was perfect, it really was.

It was only these few times a year that my mother would fully lose herself.

She didn't hurt me, unless you count the hugging, but I wouldn't. Apparently though, people thought that she would, or someone else for that matter. They were scared of her. I couldn't understand why.

She was telling me a story that night, through the tears, and sobs that muffled her normally impeccable speech. While it didn't make much sense at time, the blurriness of it all suddenly turned crystal clear when my father walked in on the scene.

He was horrified by the sight. Crushed. I'll never forget the look on his face. It was scared, but under it all he was confused, and when the medics came to take her away I only saw pain. That's all any of us in our broken little family could see in that moment, and it's a shame because that's the last memory I have of our family together before my mother was taken away.

Our family was always a better sight when we were happy.

Physically, I still tried to visit her every week at the institution where she was placed in after being diagnosed with disorganized schizophrenia... but mentally, she was taken away from me forever that day. She never spoke another word to me, or anyone again; she just stared off into space. She might as well of been comatose, because everything I loved about her was gone.

What wasn't gone though was the last story she told me before our little world shattered.

* * *

"There was a little town, a long, long time ago. There was nothing special about the town, it was just a small community of people trying to get by. Two of these people were married, and they were very happy together. The girl's name was Tui, and the boy's name was La." She started off in her calm, motherly story telling voice.

I giggled, interrupting the story. "Those are funny names, and it sounds like they should be the other way around."

She smiled, combing back my brown hair out of my eyes. "Yes, they are, but those were their names, and we should respect them, don't you think?" I nodded in agreement. They were still silly names though... "Anyways, Tui and La were very happy together. La was a fisherman in the town, and Tui worked at her family's bakery. The couple was expecting a child soon, and they were very excited."

"As excited as when you, and Daddy were when you heard you were going to have me?" I smiled hopefully up at her.

She puckered her mouth in thought before responding. "Maybe not that excited, but almost as much." She poked my nose with her index finger. A smiled was displayed on her beautiful face. "As I was saying, they were very excited about their baby, but in the woman's eighth month, the man was ordered by his boss to go on a week long fishing trip out at sea. Now, La did not like this idea very much since he would have to leave Tui, but if he did not go he would lose his job, and he couldn't have that with a baby on the way."

She smiled down at me, hugging me tighter against her body in the rocking chair. "So he left Tui, and his unborn child to go out to sea."

"Now, the first four days were wonderful. Him, and his crew caught more fish than they could have ever expected, so one night they were celebrating their catches with dancing and drinks. Everybody was below deck when La came outside to watch the sunset."

Tighter. "However, instead of the beautiful sunset he saw black clouds all over. It couldn't of been past six o'clock, yet it looked like the middle of the night. Waves began to crash along the side of the boat, and lightning lit the colorless sky. It was the worst storm La had ever seen in his many years of being a fisherman."

"Was he scared?" I asked shyly, getting a little scared myself. I never liked thunderstorms.

"Very." She trembled out. "The rest of the crew came up on deck after hearing all the noise, and they were just as shocked. However, instead of freezing in fear they began to arm the ship, and prepare for the fight of their lives. Water was splashing onto the decks, and the ship was jolting so much that a few men fell overboard."

I shuddered. This wasn't like the normal stories my mom told me. This one was far darker. She was far darker, and if I was wrong their was no doubt she was starting to get just... far.

"Pieces of the boat began to fall off, and the sail started to rip, but the crew still kept their hopes up, and never stopped trying."

I smiled a bit at this. Maybe there was a happy ending.

"They all had hope until a giant wave, a hundred feet tall at least, was upon them."

Never mind.

My mother hugged me even tighter to her chest; crushing my shoulders in the process. "It wasn't long until the wave mercilessly crashed into the ship. Many of the men were killed upon contact, and several others died within the hour, whether from drowning or being eaten by sharks. All of them died off one by one until La was the only one left. He was alone in the middle of the ocean, floating on a piece of driftwood. He was staring at the storm that had surrounded him hours ago, which was now headed in the direction of home. Of Tui."

I felt a tear drip onto the top of my head. "Then all of a sudden, he started to swim. Swim towards the town even though it was countless miles away, and he knew he would die trying. He didn't care, he just had to try. He had to try to save Tui, and their child the way he couldn't say his crew."

I felt more wetness on my head. "Mommy?" I asked with an unsureness in my voice. It wasn't just the story that was scaring me at this point.

She just continued on though like I was nothing more than a ratty stuffed animal in her arms. It was like she couldn't hear me. "He swam for hours towards the storm, first slowly, and then faster until the speed at which he swam was of immortal quality. It was like he could control the water that surrounded him. Sure enough her was soon upon the storm, but that didn't slow him down, he swam just as fast as before until he reached the shores of his village. He walked up on the beach, and turned back to the ominous ocean. The storm was minutes away from the shore. He had to stop it."

She moved a hand to clutch my head tightly to her chest, unwilling me to move. "He began to move his arms as if he were pushing, and pulling something with great concentration. The storm clouds looked to be moving back, and forth as well until he summoned up all the strength in his body, and pushed the storm far away from the town."

"But Mommy, that's impossible!" I protested.

"He ran back into town to go find his precious Tui, but when he got to his home she wasn't there, so he went to the bakery. Instead of finding Tui he found her parents who said Tui had died in childbirth the night before." She broke out into sobs, but I couldn't comfort her, because I was locked in her iron clutch.

"La was so devastated. He scream 'Why would the universe just pull her away from me like this! why! why!'" My mother actually screamed out the words like she was La himself. I heard some shuffling from downstairs.

"He was so upset that he summoned the power of the ocean once more, letting it flood rapidly into the town. No one had a chance to escape, and everyone in the town drowned, including La himself. The end."

She finished breaking out into full out hysterical tears. I wanted to hug her, but I couldn't. In fact breathing was becoming harder. All I wanted to do was help, but I didn't get the chance to, because that was when my father barged in, and clawed me away from my mother's hysterical grasp. It truly was the end.

* * *

I'm 19 now, and my mother has been gone for 13 years. Ever since then I have tried to figure out what the story meant. I felt that it was far more significant and complex than the all the other bedtime stories she told me, like Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel.

I now sit in a large library in Beijing, thousands of miles away from home, and before me lays a book on Chinese myths and legends. The particular page opened being titled 'The Moon and Ocean Spirits.'

Also known as Tui and La. The namesakes of the characters in my mother's story.

After all these years of searching I have finally found the origin of my mother's last words to me, and they weren't some figment of her deluded imagination.

They were real, as real as legends go, but what I mean is that there was a meaning to her words. I had never realized it until now, but my mother, while crazy, had a reason for her madness in the end. She didn't want to lose me. Yes, it's crazy, I mean why would she have any reason to lose me? That part I still don't understand, but I do believe that behind my mother's madness was logic. Just not our logic. Perhaps it all makes sense in her mind, another world she straddles and fights to make sense of with ours.

In the end though, I guess the war became too much, and she had to surrender. It's a pain I don't think I will ever get over, because I know that I was the reason for all of this, no matter how many times everyone tries to deny it. That won't cover up the truth though, and it won't make me feel better in the end.

No one can hide that, like La, my mother's love for me became her ultimate downfall.


End file.
